Tried to run an all out car day yesterday, as a sort of escape. Went drifting at Motorland Mikawa with Masaharu and his old Sunny in the morning. The boro boro style at best. Left the gas cap 2hours behind in Hamamatsu. Left turns were sloshing gas all over the track… they punted us, and we couldn:t rig anything up to make the officials happy. 3500Y gets you one hour on the track… run as much as you want… small track… 2nd gear action, third gear if your ballsy… built just for drifting. Another 2000Y gets you your second hour… and it keeps getting cheaper from there.
Unlike Irohazaka, no FF drifters here. Skylines and Silvias, and one boro sunny. Poseurs… said Masaharu. I team called Field Star pulls in late. Hard tune looking cars. S15, R33, R34. All in white, big wheels… I get excited thinking these guys are here to practice up for drift tengoku, which is coming to the area in about one month.
More poseurs…
I guess Japan:s scene isn:t perfect. Field Star couldnt even do anything picture worthy. There was one guy among them all who looked like he might fit in with our local scene… burgandy 180… I asked him for a ride along… and being Japanese, he couldn:t say no. It was fun though… to be in a smokey cabin, and get tossed around inside the car… and I:ll say… he did a lot better than I could have done.
Masaharu still said he sucked.
We ditched and headed for a daylight drive of a local touge. More craziness. I don:t see how it:s feasible to build such roads. Irohazaka is super easy to drive on sight. It:s predictable. Your always pointed straight down, left right left right left right left right… 28 times to the bottom.
This place was pure hell… and I:d have to drive it many times before I could find any attack. At times the road just disappears below you, and the reappears on a totally different line. The road is stark black with tires marks, the gaurd rails are more boro looking than the Sunny.
It:s a weeknight… Masaharu says it will only be busy if there is rain that night. We do a dance and make plans to come back in the dark.
Hit an American style diner on the way back to Hamamatsu.
Japanese Hamburgers don:t have any buns… whats up with that???
Killing time at Masaharu’s pad. This guy is true Hashirya. 33 years old… 6-7 cars on the property. His beloved, but destroyed Kouki Levin coupe (walled at \ebisu I think he said… I:m bonking hard at this point and I need Yoshiko to help me understand everything). A pair of KP61:s… one with 13×9 A3A:s and an AE101 20v on carbs. A sunny truck… a nice looking S13 (he wanted to try a new car… ???) and some Minica thing which I didn:t care about, but Yoshiko thought was cute.
Do I want some parts? He:s fallen hard for sunny and he has all this 86 stuff lying around. Chromo flywheel, tail lights, bumpers, crazy header, steering racks, instrument panels… Japanese people in general are very generous (when they:re not pointing and gawking…) and Masaharu is exceptionally so. I decline everything… it:s too heavy I say… I can:t take these things back home. We move on to movies and magazines…
He hands me his collection of Drift Tengoku vids… There must be 50… not rips… real dvd:s. He doesn:t watch anymore, he says. uhhh… OK… like I:m going to decline that! Magazine… vintage issues of something called hatiroku kids, service manuals and weird things I didn:t know existed.
He wanted to give me like 30kg of magazines… I only took maybe 5.
Killing time… it:s not going to rain. Back home… with the promise of trying again another day.
Day before yesterday is a major blur. I hadn:t slept for a long time. We joined up with Michiko… my new oneechan, and 9 of her friends, rolled out to pick some strawberries fresh off the plant at a farm in Shizuoka-ken. A big crowd… it was fun. My Japanese langauge usage reaches a new high, even though I:m weak at the knees and wandery. Went bowling after that. Oneechan is driving us around. (I can drive in Japan… but it:s freaking trying enough when I:m in a good state of mind.) Bowling is a brown streak in my mind. I recall a being terrified of slipping and falling while throwing. I imagine my feet out in front of me the balling going no where but straight up… and then smashing my face into the floor. Gutterball…
Whoa… did that 4 year old girl just get strike? And what:s up with that 75lb Japanese girl who scored 170?
Theyre going out to hit the pub… Oneechan… please take me home.
Horrible nightmares…
Am I bloody crying??
Then finally beautiful drug induced sleep.
Peace…
PS… where:s my camera??